Death Knight Tanking Tips&Tricks

[Redneckxxl]

Hi all!

I'm gonna be honest with you: I'm a bit of a n00b, dps'd for long time as hunter, but now i want to tank with my Dranei Death Knight. (lvl 71 now, will soon be lots higher)

So far i know is frost/holy combination the best tankspec there is for dk, i know the gear etc. But what i dont know is how to tank with it! One pull is going well, keeping aggro with Death and Decay, Howling Blast, dark command etc. but a soon as an unexpexited thing appears i'm lost.... (:P realy)

Can u wow-experts give some some nice tanking tips? I realy dont know what to do anymore.

My spec as far as i think its good:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000

PS
Some say (i'v seen it work) that blood/frost/unholy (blood farout most) is also good for tanking.

So for short:

I need some tanking tips, can u please help me?

[ShadowWeaver]

Actually, the more successful death knights i have seen are unholy specced. People assume that frost is the tank spec
simply because of frost presence being the tanking presence. I'm unholy specced and i'm aoe'ing down heroics and tanking
25 man raids.

Here's the link to mine.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&n=Bladescourn

[Redneckxxl]

oke, ty! Altho i must ask the question a bit different maybe:

How do i become a good tank, i'v seen blood, frost and (now) unholy specced, but what kind of thing do i need to do? Getting aggro, yes, but how?

If a ninja pull is done (besides the normal pull), normaly my aoe-spells/skills are on cooldown of keeping the first pull aggro'd....

Maybe its more the handle.... Is it the marking? My party/guild members are skilled in what they do, now i need to become a skilled tank.... Can u learn me how to tank?

ty

[Inquisitor]

So I just actually made an account to address this. How lucky for you. Firstly, as A Death Knight Tank, Make sure you have a pretty good pool of health. At level 71 you should rest around 13k with frost presence. [assuming you have the gear] For your level It's also nice to have moderate attack power and a high defense rating. If you have the gear and stats than for the moment you should be fine.
Next, tanking involves doing more than taking damage, For Death Knights especially it's a must you can put out a good dps, at 71 death knight tanking, frost specced, your DPS to a group of 2 or more mobs should be between 450-700. If your within that region your threat should be fine. Rotations- A good rotation while tanking 1-4 mobs would be, Icy touch, plague strike, pestilence,[bloodtap&bloodboilifpossible] death and decay, death chill then howling blast. At this point you should be able to continue the rotation, for the times where your Death and Decay is on cool down use those three remaining Blood frost and unholy (assuming your howling blast is also on the 6sec cool down still) on Icy touch, plague strike and the another pestilence. With this rotation you should generally keep threat and the monsters on you
AND, Hungering cold, use it when ever things get out of control, after using it activate deathchill and howling blast right away, or just howling blast if deathchill is on cool down, keep your icebound fortitude on at all times that its not on a cool down, use unbreakable armor when it's off cool down and lich borne when your fighting more than two melee. When a friend is under attack tab target the mob and use dark command or death grip. When 3.0.8 is released death knights get there armor increase by frost presence up to eighty percent, A death knight tank of your level will have about 55% mitigation. Really do what's comfortable though all these things really help out a lot.

Here you go!
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000


Stats!
For 3.0.8 (defense has importance in the upcoming patch)
Defense>Stam>Str>Dodge or parry rating )

[Inquisitor]

Ah all this thinking of tanking has made me want to re-gear for just that.
Haha

[Redneckxxl]

Well guys (or girls)

Thank u very much, it has helped me realy well so far!!!

I'v tanked Nexus normal now and i think i did great (:P I think, i died just once, only me, and i got ballte-ressed bij druid ), i held aggro from lvl 80 dps mage and all was realy fine!

I'v used the order and spec u guys set as an example and its working great!

Thank u very much!

Btw, lvl 71 and i'm indeed 13K health and i hope the 3.0.8 is coming out soon! Can u tell me where to find more about 3.0.8?

ty ty ty!

PS, i've got into marking, wich also helps with keeping the other dps on one target at a time, now i just need to fix an maccro to explain the/my order of marking

ty ty ty!

[Darshana]

So what rotation should you be using as a frost spec tank? you don't seem to mention obliterate in there?

[Ouhz]

I'm a frost specced DK tank as well and there's only very few situations I actually use Obliterate. Usually I use it if I know the mob is going to die pretty instantly anyway (think of an add in VH for example) or mainly when Rime procced. The Rime procc will allow me to use my HB for free, so I still have the runes up for Obliterate. This way I keep all mobs with me and with Obliterate build more aggro on my main target (and not using runes that are off cooldown would be rather stupid anyway )
The big advantage HB has over Obliterate is that it hits multiple mobs, and even if you only tank one mob, it is favorable because it is a magical attack that will ignore armor.

[Mr. Gerbz]

Actually, the more successful death knights i have seen are unholy specced. People assume that frost is the tank spec
simply because of frost presence being the tanking presence. I'm unholy specced and i'm aoe'ing down heroics and tanking
25 man raids.

Here's the link to mine.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&n=Bladescourn

What a strange spec.

You might want to try this as unholy tank:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000

[Flautze]

What a strange spec.

You might want to try this as unholy tank:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000

Actually I think your spec is kind of strange too.

No Bladed Armor but Butchery and Scent of Power ???
On A Pale Horse ????? (when do you see yourself running around on a mount with lvl 80 while tanking???)
Night of the Dead ????? (no need for tank, also master of Ghouls)
Gargoyle / Corpse Explosion / Ebon Plaguebringer (3/3) all waste of points
No Necrosis or Impurity, no Blood-caked Blade ?? Still in 2H while tanking one of the 3 major dmg sources is my auto-attack, it should be boosted.

When 80, thats probably pre-patch one of the "better" tankspecs (dont know if my sig already shows it, but here a link)
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000 (still assuming the old values though - boneshiled 40% and stuff)

[Guruthôs]

hi

in never made experience in blood or unholy tanking but in my opinion this is one of the best tanking specc against mele bosses with 2h weapons:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000


against casters i would prefer this:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000

at the moment i am using this "allround"specc :

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000

never got any problems with this specc.

i don't know why you all skill Hungering Cold ... :P useless i think

[Spadeshall]

No one mentioned the cooldowns of a frost DK. This is one Major advantage of a FDK. You get 2 C/D's. Lichborne and UBA. I play a Frost Death Knight and at the moment I can keep at-least one C/D up for the duration of a fight. This includes trinkets and racial. That being said many healers prefer me tanking opposed to a warr, paly, or druid.

[Guruthôs]

i think, blood / unholy tanking is somthing like "challenging the healer" mode. no talents for avoidance / reduction or something else ... ok, boneshield ... 20% after patch and when its down and cd not rdy you are fisted hardley^^. i think frost is called "the def tree" because of the avoidance-abilitys.
blood / unholy maybe a little better in aggromanagement but nothing else

[diggorey]

As a MT spec i thought of this:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=131119040605

rotation (bossfight or other single target)would be:
icy touch -> plague strike -> obliterate -> blood strike -> blood strike -> RP dump / rime procs
icy touch -> plague strike -> obliterate -> obliterate -> RP dump / rime procs

[Aredhel128]

if u ask me ill go SOMETHING LIKE THIS
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=000000000000

i am still not sure is it smart to sacrifise 3% dodge for Guile of Gorefiend...

IMO, mark of blood and rune tap is here to make job for healer easier!
Hungering cold is situational and i droped it!
Veteran of third war > Tundra stalker!
This spec gives u really big number of death runes...!
Parry, ap....

Imo advantages of frost over unholy are
Howling blast for AOE aggro, Unbreakable armor for hard hitting bosses, or mobs, Lichborne = 25% miss, Frigid deathplate = 3% miss, Killing machine for good aggro!

[Crazhr]

Im sorry to say this but there is alot of fail in this post. The problem is that tanking 5man and hc is now so easy
that even if you got the worst spec in the world you can still hold agro. First ALWAYS use 5/5/5 no matter how
you spec, 10% parry 95% of the fight is just insane, 15% armor is very nice and 5% dodge help alot. If you need
to you can remove 3 points from anticipation to morbidity to remove the cd on dnd, this is mostly for fights like the event in HoS and it also makes VH alot easier.

All what you ever heard about blood/unholy/frost is the best spec is bull shit, both unholy, frost 2h and frost dw can tank every encounter in the game and it has been done. Blood can do the same but is generaly considered worse then forst/unholy, but the next patch is going to change that and make all 3 specs close to equal.

Also the person saying imp icy talsons is useless dont got a clue. Yes its true that they do not stack with wf but how often do you have a shaman in the group and even if you have he can just drop wrath of ari and make healing easier. Imp icy talons is a huge boost to dps if you got even a single melee, you may not get alot from it but the rogue/ret/fury/ who should be doing the dps gains alot from it.

But still you dont need to get it, what you CANT take is blood of the north because
1 its useless you dont need the frost runes to keep agro and
2 it reduce the uptime of blade barrier and that is a talent you want to keep up all the time.

Also hungering cold is useless or atleast so rarly used that its considered wasted.

Epedemic can be very nice but you can tank without it.

If you want to spec for tanking when you have just hit 80 and I would NEVER spec for tanking before 80 because you can tank all normal instances in dps spec and even dps gear then try this spec.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=j0EZGxxthcdRhR0ssxcr

you got alot of freedom to place some points difrently but remember blood of the north makes you a worse tank.
Also runicpower mastery is close to useless becauce you very rarly got more then +80 rp and if you do then you can use it very quickly. Also killing machina is close to useless because in tanking gear you got about 5-8% crit atleast in blues and if you got a weapon on a 3,5 swing timer then its going to proc so rarly its useless.

A basic aoe rotation is dnd (always use dnd first so you healers dont get agro because of a small heal or something like that) then it->ps->pestilence. If you do this and the dps is not masivly out gearing you got got enugh agro on all mobs to focus on other things like target a caster and help interrupt or just help nuke down the first kill target. but when runes come off cd then howling blast and blood boil.

Now do 1 more bloodboil wait for cd and howling blast agin and then place a new dnd.

so dnd->it->ps->pestilence->howling blast->blood boil->blood boil->dnd

On a single target just it->ps->bs->bs->hb->hb->bs->bs->it->ps

ofc everytime you need to wait for runes just frost strike.

If we are talking about gear then there is 1 stat to focus on and that is defence. You need 535 defence value (the number you can see in the char sheet under defence ) to be crit immune to heroic bosses. So start by going to an bs and getting full blue set of tank gear. Its preety cheap and got tons of defence, then go to the ah and by 22 def chest enchant and 12 def enchant to cloak. Then get a belt buckel and a 16 defence gem. Now you should be very close to the 535 mark so just go out tank heroics and get some better gear and start focusing on stam but never get less then 535 defence.

Also its alright to have a very small hp poll I tanked close to every heroic when I only had 20k hp so it can be done.

And then I know it can seem strage in the beginning but remember USE THE DEFENCIVE CDs.

And dont use them all at once but chain cast them like first use icebound fortitude wait 18 sek cast unbreakable armor wait 18 sek cast lichborne wait a few sek cast icebound fortitude again.

You need to use in the beginning to not be so hard to heal, so do the healers the favor and use them.

And the last but most importent thing, if you are going to be a tank
1. Dont complain about the healing not being able to keep you up, ask him if YOU can do something difrent to help his job.
2. Dont get angry at the dps is doing to little damage help them by interupting cast keeping the mobs still and pulling them to them so they got more time to focus on doing there job.

(There are ofc cases where its alright to get angry at the healer is he is a druid full resto spamming ht or if a rogue does less then 200 dps becuase he got daggers and is spamming hemo eviserate)

But normaly dont just say: Its your fault!!!! Try to find out what you could have done difrently, if you do this then you are soon going to get a rumor as a decent tank and get alot of invites if you dont you are left spamming trade channel: tank lfg any hc.

Btw to all the flammers out there Im sorry but I dont got time to read it and place all the ,,,,, and ... and remove my spelling mistakes because I need to go find a Christmas three whit my kids so feel free to do it for me :P

[Useful]

oke, ty! Altho i must ask the question a bit different maybe:

How do i become a good tank, i'v seen blood, frost and (now) unholy specced, but what kind of thing do i need to do? Getting aggro, yes, but how?

If a ninja pull is done (besides the normal pull), normaly my aoe-spells/skills are on cooldown of keeping the first pull aggro'd....

Maybe its more the handle.... Is it the marking? My party/guild members are skilled in what they do, now i need to become a skilled tank.... Can u learn me how to tank?

ty

hello. first of all make sure ur in frost presence for tanking (in case u r not). good "tip" is to save ur deathgrip and taunt cooldowns for ninja pulls and aggro pulls. make sure u using this rotation on ae tanking

DnD > IT > PS > Pest > blood tap > BB. use extra rp on Runestrike. it should proc a lot.

if theres a situation when some one pulls aggro or extra pak of mobs - those guys need to ltp.
remember - TANK IS ALWAYS RIGHT !! )

[elyx]

I agree with crazhr...currently both frost AND unholy are great tank trees, and blood will be as well once patch hits. If anyone says 'x' build is best for tanking, ill betcha bucks its also teh spec they primarily leveled with. Often teh best tree for you to tank is teh one your most familiar with! I love unholy, thus i went unholy for tanking.

This is one of the things i like about the DK. Also, priorities rather then cycles have become the best approach to playing a DK, though cycles are a little more important in tanking then DPS. Having said that, there are few approaches that work great. I will usually use D&D initially as well, but i usually try to put it closer to the mobs, with me in the edge of it. this is before pull, much like a pally dropping conscecrate before the mobs get to him...You want them in the D&D for a tick or two to build initial aggro. Ill then usually drop my 2 disease strikes. From that point tho, Im a big fan of corruption and Blood boil. Massive aoe threat there. By that time i have plenty of Rp for unholy blight, and usually the DPS cant pull mobs off of me even if they try.

My biggest issue with threat has been eager DPS who start in before mobs get into my D&D. Sometimes ill put D&D on the pack itself, so they get a tick as they run through it towards me. Other times ill run into the pack and hit D&D. either way, It's usually a judgement call on each fight. I usually ask dps to not start in until they see the boney hands reach up from the ground its usually an easy visual for them, and by teh time my PS has triggered, i have decent threat on mobs. Won't work if you don't take desecration, but i've always had it due to the dps build i run as unholy. but whatever works, as long as they dont start spamming their shots before the mobs reach you. Its sorta odd, my warrior and pally now have decent ranged threat instants, but my DK is now where pallys used to be...mobs need to be within melee range before you can really start to build threat, and much of its tick based. At least UB ticks every second

[kekoa]

@ Crazhr...amen brother!

I was thinking the exact same thing while I was reading this thread.

To the OP listen to this man he's got it right. Alot of people still dont understand the DK.

On A Pale Horse ????? (when do you see yourself running around on a mount with lvl 80 while tanking???)

Gargoyle / Corpse Explosion / Ebon Plaguebringer (3/3) all waste of points
no Blood-caked Blade ??

Uh, maybe the reduce stun and fear affects is why you get it? Gargoyle can be a eazy threat booster...granted i wouldnt pick it up but i wouldnt say its wasted. Corpse explosion...that just more AoE dmg...again i wouldnt get it but thats my personal play stile. And for your last stupid comment about Ebon Plaugebringer...that is another disease that boosts aoe dmg and makes your SS hit harder...so please dont make stupid comments unless you know what your talking about because clearly you don't. Uh I almost forgot..blood-caked blade...its not bad but not neccessary...i personally would rather have virulence. But like i've stated before to each his own...but dont mock somebodys spec when all you see is how YOU like things and you try to push YOUR beliefs on someone else.

These kind of comments are exactly what i'm talking about...ALOT of people still have no idea how to play there own class and its sad.

[Pindleskin]

Actually, the more successful death knights i have seen are unholy specced. People assume that frost is the tank spec
simply because of frost presence being the tanking presence. I'm unholy specced and i'm aoe'ing down heroics and tanking
25 man raids.

Here's the link to mine.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&n=Bladescourn

Actually, until you get about 50-55% avoidance, frost is better. Using the various cooldowns you have, you help mitigate your lack of gear.